Education vs Learning
This post is subtitled: What I would tell middle school me123.
(I was going to write something about why I disliked high schoolers doing research (spoiler: it's because (in my potentially flawed (p = 0.4) view) we high schoolers do it to be able to say "i did research" rather than to do research), but I realized partway through writing that my idea was wrong.)
There is a distinction made by the authors of Whiplash (Joi Ito and Jeff Howe) between education and learning4 -- "Learning...is something you do for yourself. Education is something done to you." And in these trying times, we must put learning over education.
Learning is that careful, raw, exploratory play that one does on their own. Whether that be dissecting an ant, drawing a lemon, programming a game, or writing a story to name some, learning is something that you do for yourself. Key to this, learning isn't mandated by some higher-up power; with that time spent learning, you could do nothing5, but instead, you consciously choose to learn (and thus improve yourself).
Education on the other hand is careful but cut out knowledge -- and crucially, you didn't cut that knowledge out yourself. If we take the analogy of vegetables, instead of eating carrots that you chose because you liked carrots (learning), you instead get broccoli shoved down your throat by someone else just because (education). Education, principally, is school.
As an example of the difference between learning and educating, think of a textbook. On its own, just a book of knowledge. And if I pick up that textbook and start reading; whether that be chronologically or randomly, I am learning; I am doing this "boring" reading work because I want to learn. If on the other hand it is my homework to read from page abc to xyz, that is then education -- sure, the knowledge may be the same, but this reading is now something that is forced upon you, something "done to you" in the words of Ito and Howe.
With these two fundamental concepts out of the way, on to the main point, that learning should be placed over education.
Fundamentally, I believe that a teacher (in the broadest sense) should help their students learn rather than give them an education. As a teacher, your job is not to mandate that students learn [xyz] but rather to simply help the student; as such, a good teacher (which I am not) would hopefully push students to learn on their own rather than simply provide them with an education.
My reasoning is based on two (philosophical) truths -- students may come and go, and while education is temporary, learning is forever. On the first note, students are not obligated6 to learn from the teacher, the students can simply move on, and at the extreme, simply learn for themselves. As such, I would view the teacher-student (and probably mentor-mentee relationship) through a sort of "opt-in" framework; in order for the relationship to exist, the teacher needs to accept the job of guiding the student, and the student needs to recognize that they need to follow the teacher. As a byproduct, both parties (the student and teacher) can leave (opt-out) the relation at any time.
On the second point, the fact that education is temporary and learning is forever, I think the following phrase (which we have all heard) fares well:
Catch a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and he'll never be hungry again (unless he catches fish faster than the population size grows in which case he will have to learn how to find a new fishing spot).
I think the above aphorism is especially relevant to the learning vs education distinction because it highlights the fundamental change -- instead of passively receiving fish, the hungry man actively learns how to fish;; with the implication that he can now fish on his own. In this same manner, I would caution on giving someone simply an education (some facts and maybe thought processes) and calling it a day; if that someone doesn't realize that they themselves have to learn, no matter how much education you give them, they will not make any progress towards anything meaningful once you (or they) leave.
With all that said, I can continue to dunk on school by highlighting how much they suck at helping a student learn (and instead under the banner of learning crush the mind to dust), but that's a proof I leave to the reader. Instead, I shall leave with some comments to middle school me7 (on learning).
Learn. Education is great, but if you want to be the best, go learn. What this translates to is reading. Read books, and read them damn indiscriminately -- as long as you like what you're reading8, keep on reading, whether that book is on law or agriculture or water bottles or philosophy.
Learn. Do your own side projects. If you can't tell, school is hella fuckin boring. As such, first, figure out how to spend your time in school to go learning (reading is a good option), and second, do side projects; whether these be with other people (extracurriculars) or your own projects (e.g. program a bit adder! program chess but in the terminal!), you gotta be creating on the side.
Learn. Even when you don't want to. It's very hard getting off of the dopamine train -- off of surviv.io (now survev.io for me), Mindustry, chess, Discord, etc.; and if you truly have trouble, simply go outside and sit down and just reflect.
Always remember the distinction made here -- the distinction between learning and education. If you forget, refer back here. The distinction between education and learning will help you decide whether something is truly worth your time/attention -- are you learning (on your own accord), or are you simply receiving education?9
For context, had a lot of time on my hands in middle school and I used maybe 15% of it wisely -- 15% of all the time I had was devoted to me. It's not that I spent the other 85% of the time playing video games or learning something that didn't work out etc etc; it's that 85% of the time, what I was doing was not helping me. Take video games for example -- I used to play them a hecking lot. If I was walking home from school and playing BTD Battles at the same time, that walk turned from 10-15 minutes (no phone) to 30 minutes. To me, that's time wasted; sure, I needed something to do perhaps to recharge my brain from the boringness of school, but in playing video games and "hopping on the dopamine train," I would end up wasting far more time than necessary.↩
And 9th grade me and 10th grade me.↩
And any aspiring student who wants to learn and be good at what they do. And those that I've sent this post to (you know who you are).↩
Took me 5 minutes to find the page number but it's on page 32.↩
Side note: Doing nothing is hard. For a side quest, try sitting absolutely still (and thinking about nothing or redirecting your attention to a blank piece of paper every time you stray) for 5 minutes. It's agonizing.↩
This is untrue in conventional schooling, but I'm trying to talk in broad terms (we'll get to high school in a bit).↩
And high school me and current me and you (the reader).↩
Two caveats: Don't read fiction unless there's a purpose, and online materials work great as well. The fiction note is there just since I find that once I'm done reading fiction, if I don't reflect and really have the ideas seep into my mind, it just becomes a story and it's almost like I read for nothing.↩
Adding on to this, go dive into rabbit holes. Go click on a link that leads to a link that leads to 3 that leads to 5 until you're drowning and have to inevitably not click on all the links. Because that's learning.↩